Africa

2011

We
write a lot at CPJ about the terrible things that happen to journalists because
of their reporting, but we don't often get a chance to show you what happens to
them after they are forced
to flee their homes and land abroad. This video, about three such
journalists, is worth watching.

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In the silence, I hear the symphony of memories that was
your life as I knew it. I see your waving hand gestures and wry smile as you
recount stories whilst we sit together in the tropical Liberian heat discussing
everything from classical music to aperture priority. My heart and mind keep
seeing you, hearing you, and struggling to believe you have moved on.

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I first met Tim
Hetherington in Monrovia in 2005, in the run-up to Liberia's then historic
elections, which officially drew the line under the country's 14-year civil
war. Tim had already reported from Liberia in the chaotic final stages of that war in 2003, marching for days on end through dense and unforgiving tropical bush filming rebels making a last desperate assault on the regime of the falling president, Charles Taylor.

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Stanton B. Peabody, a pillar of the press in Liberia and mentor to
generations of visiting foreign correspondents, died this week in Monrovia. He
was 80. Stanton, affectionately called "Bob Stan" by friends and family, reported
through five administrations, a coup that brought an army sergeant to power in
1980 and a civil war that toppled him in a bloodbath 10 years later.

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In Malawi,
where half the population survives on a dollar a day, it proves wise for the
political elite to keep their exorbitant wealth hidden from public
scrutiny. That's why they appear to be
running to the courthouse to file injunctions to silence the press.

On Monday, in a public lecture at New
York University, South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe described as irreversible the democratic
gains made since the end of apartheid, including the advancement of press
freedom. "We have a constitution which guarantees basic human rights such as
freedom of association, freedom of the press, and the independent judiciary," he
declared. Many in South Africa, however, are not so sure that press freedom's future is secure.

It was February 2008 when Bahjo Mohamud Abdi received her
first anonymous phone call. It was a man's voice asking her to confirm who she
was. Abdi was a presenter and correspondent for the state radio in Somalia's
semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Abdi confirmed her identity and thought no
more about it. But then she received another anonymous phone call two hours
later--informing her that she was talking to the "Somali Mujahadeen" and that
they could see her in the local shopping center in downtown Baidoa.